As Jared stood lamenting his situation and that of the people who were with him, the rain came. It started lightly, like most California rains do, before picking up to a steady downpour. The rain in this area of California rarely came in torrential downpours, but more in a balanced and constant cascade. This night was one of those cascades, and whoever was out on watch was sure to be wet, cold and miserable.
The rain served to disrupt Jared’s thought session, sending him heading toward the tent, where Essie had already sought asylum under the nylon fabric. Jared was thankful for the rain cover and even more relieved Shannon and Stephani had used it when they set the makeshift shelter up. Jared hurried to their gear, where saddles and packs alike sat out in the open where they were pelted with raindrops. He pulled a small shovel from the gear and called out to Devon.
“Hey, Dev, can you start digging a trench around the tent to drain the water away from it so we don’t get flooded?”
Wordlessly, Devon took the shovel and began the excavation project, while Jared turned back to the mound of gear and withdrew a dark green, ten-by-ten-foot tarp. He caught Stephani’s eye and she hurried over to assist. Jared and Stephani covered the gear with the tarp, then used rocks to anchor the four corners to the already muddy ground. When Devon finished trenching the perimeter of the tent, Jared took the tool and did the same around their gear.
The group didn’t make it a habit of cooking inside the tent, but with a water pouring from the heavens, everyone agreed there would be little to no chance of an accidental burndown. Jared stood out in the rain as the rest of the group crowded into the tent. Shannon sat nearest the opening, which was covered by a small vestibule. The vestibule was a product of the rain cover and offered nothing in the way of a floor.
As much as Jared wanted to duck under the cover of the vestibule, he refrained, knowing it would greatly reduce his view of the surrounding area. Alternatively, he leaned against the trunk of a large tree, enjoying a tiny slice of refuge from the rain all the while coveting the immunity everyone inside the tent seemed to be taking for granted based on the miserable looks on their faces.
Shannon used a small isobutane-propane stove to heat meals. When she finished with a meal, she would pass it to the owner and heat the next. Essie ate first, then Devon. When Devon was finished, he stepped out into the rain so Jared could eat. Jared felt miserable in the cold rain, but the upside was it would help mask the scent of their food from drifting too far and attracting any unwanted attention.
As Jared was about to duck into the tent, he patted Devon’s arm. “Hey, man, do your thing out here. Don’t go too far, but scout the area so we have an idea about this place. If you run into trouble, give me a single shot. If you’re in trouble, give me three shots and don’t lead anyone back here.”
Devon nodded, then snapped his fingers twice, summoning Crank to his side. The dog reluctantly stepped out of the tent, where he’d been busy cleaning the leftovers from Essie’s meal pack. As the teen and K-9 slipped into the darkness, Jared stepped out of the rain. There wasn’t much room, and try as he might, Jared tracked a significant amount of mud into the shelter. No one complained while Shannon continued with her meal-heating duties as if nothing had changed.
During the night, the rain never let up, drenching everyone to the bone during their scheduled watch times. Jared for one never felt he was able to get warm even after he climbed into a sleeping bag. When he woke, his feet felt like they’d been stored overnight in a freezer. Essie was possibly the only person in their group who slept through the entire night and remained relatively warm while doing so.
For breakfast, Jared and Shannon shared a backpacker’s meal while Essie and Stephani did the same. Devon was the only one who ate an entire meal to himself minus the small amount he shared with Crank. Jared thought Devon needed more since he was a growing teen, and he constantly was scouting and therefore burning more calories than the rest of the group. No one in the group disagreed.
As the sun reached its highest point for the day, Jared spotted a major road ahead. With all the security halts, the group hadn’t made very good time. Jared scanned the area ahead and decided they would ride closer to the river and pass under the road, which spanned the snaking body of water.
Half an hour later, they were safely on the north side of the road and moving ever closer to a point Jared knew they would again be forced to cross under or over Highway 5. After passing under the previous road, Jared hoped they could do the same with the highway. The only concerning aspect of passing under an overpass was the fact that not so many months ago, Jared had spent the night with a homeless man named Bob. The underside of a bridge provided protection from the elements like the rain they were riding through, which could attract others seeking refuge from the elements. Jared reminded himself to be extra careful with this portion of their journey.
Late in the afternoon, Jared caught sight of hundreds of motionless vehicles stretching across the landscape and knew they’d reached Highway 5. He stopped more than four hundred yards from the highway and withdrew his binoculars for a better look from afar.
Atop his horse, Jared was afforded a good view of a bad situation. The last three hundred yards to the highway was bordered on two sides by water, the river to the east and a large pond on the west side. These two water sources created a sort of funnel they’d be trapped in with only two ways of escape during the final three-hundred-yard ride to the highway.
As Jared scanned the area, he saw some type of refinery near the highway. There were pipelines and what appeared to be two additional roads and bridges on the west side of Highway 5. Jared’s wish for a clean pass through was not to be. From Jared’s position he was unable to see any service roads passing under the highway. The river’s banks dropped steeply from under the highway, plunging downward into the river, and from what Jared could see, their horses were most likely not going to be able to traverse the steep banks of the river without getting into the water. Without knowing the steepness of the river’s banks under the water’s surface, this was far too dangerous. With the option for an underneath crossing gone, Jared began considering ways of crossing the menagerie of roadways on top instead of underneath.
Shannon, Essie and Stephani sat quietly waiting for Jared to finish inspecting their intended course. Meanwhile, Jared agonized internally on whether he should move forward or find an alternate route. A memory flashed in his mind of an old man named Bart who told him there would be times when what you had to do seemed overly dangerous and you didn’t want to move forward. Bart impressed on Jared those times were the times a man had to make an educated decision and take action. In a world as fluid and dangerous as his was these days, Jared felt confident that inaction was his enemy as much as anyone hiding in ambush would be.
Jared let out a long breath, stowed the optics, and turned in his saddle. “Be ready for anything.” Without waiting for an answer, he urged his mount forward. When Jared drew within a hundred yards of the highway, he realized there was a service road that ran under the highway, but it had a chain-link fence complete with a gate blocking any passage. Months prior when Jared had embarked on his journey, leaving the dwindling safety of his apartment in Belmont, he’d made sure to carry a smaller set of bolt cutters for carving his way through a formerly fenced-off society.
Today he was thankful for the set he carried, and as soon as the group reached the highway, he set about cutting a passage through the chain-link fence. Once he was back in the saddle, he pushed his mount into a trot as the animal clambered up a slight embankment and clip-clopped across the hard-packed dirt service road, its hooves echoing eerily under the highway structure above them. The tension was heavy as the group hurried across the road before dropping back down closer to the river’s edge. Jared fought the impulse to spur his mount into a run, knowing Essie would be at risk of falling off. Jared led the group into what he thought would fall away to a remote area, but quickly realized the river was closely bordered by a subdivisi
on that wasn’t shown on his map.
Thankfully the homes were not built directly on the river’s edge. Still, the presence of a large neighborhood within a pistol shot had everyone in the little group on high alert. Jared hoped people had chosen to abandon these areas months ago, but the mere sign of humans gave him a bad case of the jitters. Jared felt it necessary to pull his rifle to the front as he rode and wondered if he was going to get some experience shooting from the saddle before day’s end.
Within less than a mile the housing development ended, and Jared’s stress levels dropped significantly as the group rode into a much more rural area along the twisting San Joaquin River. After passing the dangers of being in close proximity to the neighborhood, which slowed the group’s progress considerably, Jared pushed the group at a slightly faster than normal pace for thirty minutes before stopping to rest and water the animals.
Chapter 21
Matt knew the guard rotation along the base’s perimeter, but was unsure when relief would be sent for the two soldiers tied up on the floor of the SEALs’ living quarters. If the trussed-up fellas in their underwear were relieved in true military fashion, Matt estimated he had approximately four hours from the time the two would-be guards had showed up.
Matt and Denver’s plan was violent, swift, and full of holes that threatened to shorten the expected life span of every SEAL involved. They were running short on time, and Matt was almost sure Carnegie was complete with his interviews of the people involved in the raid on the homestead. That meant Carnegie was almost certainly planning or trying to decide how to deal with Matt and the rest of the SEALs.
Denver pulled the SEALs together once everyone was finished prepping gear so he and Matt could give them the evening’s mission briefing. Matt gave a ruthful smile to the group, who stared back with the usual confidence of highly trained and experienced fighting men.
“We have to move quick, fellas,” Matt started. “The only two men in this camp I authorize you to shoot on sight are Josh and the colonel. Everyone else is off-limits unless your life hangs in the balance. We will announce our intention of not wanting to hurt anyone we come across with a you don’t shoot, we don’t shoot approach. We need two Hummers for this escape, and we need to disable the Black Hawk out there. If we fail to ground the bird, they’re going to get it up and hammer us from the air.”
The briefing lasted forty-five minutes, with Matt and Denver taking turns at the pulpit. After assignments were given, the SEALs were asked to recite back their mission duties. Matt used the tabletop to lay out maps in order to familiarize the team with their intended routes of egress. An hour later the SEALs were ready to begin their departure from Carnegie’s camp.
The one thing working in the SEALs’ favor was Carnegie lacked manpower, resulting in the consolidation of most everything into a smaller corner of the base. This worked in the SEALs’ favor since they wouldn’t be fighting their way across a large open base. If they could secure the two Humvees, the SEALs would have a short ride to the perimeter. Once outside the fence, their only threat would be from pursuing forces.
The helicopter and Humvees were all within a hundred yards of each other at any given time unless they were out on a mission. Matt planned to steal two of the three remaining Humvees and drive right through the fences on the southern side of the base until they reached a road. Denver agreed they should move west into the hills, where they would pose a much bigger problem in containing. Leaving only one Humvee behind would leave Carnegie severely hamstrung in mounting any type of pursuit.
One of the younger SEALs asked why they didn’t use the two guards as hostages during their exit-stage-left maneuvers. Matt quashed this immediately, telling the SEALs they didn’t take hostages, and even if they did, he was positive Carnegie would not be deterred by a couple of hostages. They would not be an asset, but more of a hindrance when Carnegie ordered his men and women to open fire on not only the SEALs, but their hostages as well. Once Matt was finished putting any hostage-taking ideas to bed, Adam flicked his chin in Matt’s direction, indicating he had something to say.
Matt returned the unspoken gesture, letting the SEAL know he was cleared to talk.
“What about that cat they have in the shed?” Adam asked.
“There are two in the shed,” Denver added.
Matt groaned inwardly at the thought of any deviation from his planned escape. If Matt were a gold humanoid in a science fiction film, this would have been the time he began spewing the dismal odds that were not in their favor without adding a rescue component to their already flimsy plan to abscond. When Matt didn’t respond, Denver gave him a questioning look as he chewed the corner of his mouth.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, boys,” Matt bemoaned in frustration. “My job was to make sure you all made it back off deployments. Now my job is to keep you all alive, and that’s not a guarantee if we try to save the world here.”
Denver ceased chewing his lip as Matt finished. “We’re all big boys here, Matt. The Special Missions’ guy in that shed pissed ole Carnegie off enough to get himself locked up, which tells me he might fit in to this motley group pretty well.”
There were several murmurs of approval as Matt searched the faces of the SEALs in the room. He didn’t find a single dissenting face in the group. This both troubled Matt and made him proud at the same time.
“Okay,” Matt conceded. “Let’s think about this for a minute. What do we know about this guy, and is it worth risking all our lives on the off chance he will even want to come with us?”
When the SEALs first arrived, Carnegie tried to have Kemper stow all their weapons in an armory used for the rest of the base personnel. Kemper refused by pointing out Josh was gunned up and ready to go at all times, including sleeping with his weapon. Carnegie retracted the order, and it was never brought up again. As most warfighters are apt to be curious about most everything, the SEALs got a tour of the armory, and every one of them remembered seeing the dirty and well-worn loadout locked in the armory that could only have belonged to the Special Missions Unit man.
The rifle was of higher quality than the ones the SEALs were carrying, as was most of his equipment. The SEALs agreed they would have to seize the armory in order to kill two birds with one stone. They would retrieve the gear belonging to the black sheep in the shed, and while they were there, the SEALs would destroy the rest of the weapons in the armory. Matt knew they didn’t have a ton of explosives, but they had enough to render the armory’s contents useless.
Again, Matt and his SEALs crowded around the table as Matt drew up a revised plan, which he feared was going to turn out to be an all-out firefight before they faded into the hills. The problem was the hill country could only be reached by traveling across several miles of land nearly as flat as the table they were planning the operation on. This cog in the works translated to a deficit of cover or concealment during the SEALs’ transition from the base to the hills.
As darkness dropped its veil over the base, Matt stood and gave a curt nod indicating it was go-time. The two SEALs assigned to spring John from confinement were sent out as the first wave of operators. The shed was forty yards to the west of the SEALs’ living quarters, and the two men dressed in the detained soldiers’ uniforms were chosen for the detail. Matt prayed the lack of a guard element out front would not attract unwanted attention.
The two men walked casually to where the single guard sat on a folding chair outside the shed. As they neared the guard, he stood and gave a half wave before his face turned to one of confusion. The base was not all that large, and neither was the number of people living and working within its confines. The soldiers were familiar with all their peers, and the two men approaching the shed were not familiar to the guard.
The two SEALs knew the man would not recognize them, but they also knew he would not be well trained, and the confusion of seeing men he didn’t recognize in soldiers’ uniforms would allow them just the time they needed to close with and incapacitate t
he man. The SEALs were not wrong, and within three seconds, the guard was on his back, unconscious. One SEAL retrieved the keys from the guard’s pocket and opened the door.
On the inside of the door, John had been sitting on a crate when he heard the guard outside mutter something and get to his feet. A couple of seconds later, John heard what could only be described as the sound of a short scuffle followed by silence. Perplexed, John rose to his feet and moved closer to the door while offsetting himself in case someone came through the opening with hostile intent.
A moment later John heard a key slide into the lock, and then the shed’s door was pushed open. John coiled, but no one entered. It was completely out of the ordinary for anyone to open the shed door at this time of the evening. Chow had already been served, and the men weren’t due a shower for a couple of days.
“Hey, bro, we’re the good guys. Don’t do anything, man,” came a voice out of the darkness, which further perplexed John.
He almost stepped out into the open, but then stopped himself. What if Carnegie is staging an attempted escape so he can kill me? John pondered.
“Bro, the place is about to go nuclear. If you want to get out of here, let’s go. We have guys grabbing your gear now,” came the voice again.
Throwing a little caution to the wind, John responded, “Who are you?”
“The guys off the sub. Now let’s go,” came the response.
The Jared Chronicles | Book 3 | Chains of Tyranny Page 20